What is the biblical basis for the belief that people do not go to heaven or hell immediately when they die?

***Touch*** poignantly stated in a now closed [question](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/15402/do-people-go-to-heaven-immediately-when-they-die) , >But if people are already in heaven this means that there really isn't much reason for Jesus Christ to return, because all those that believe in Him are already in heaven. > > If Jesus Christ will return and all those that have faith in Him will be raised and be priests with Him for a thousand years, why make it seem as if the deceased are already in heaven? If someone dies and goes to heaven before the Last Judgement, what need is there for him to be judged at the final judgement? Hasn't he already been judged righteous if he is in heaven? In _The Bible and the Future_, Anthony Hoekema states that since Augustine, Christians have believed that the souls of those who die either rest peacefully, in the case of Christians, or are afflicted, in the case of the damned, after death until the resurrection. However, in my experience, it is nearly universally held among Protestants and Evangelicals that upon death, the soul ascends to Heaven in the case of the believer, or descends to Hell in the case of the unsaved. Hoekama also asserts that both Calvin and Luther believed in an intermediate state between death and resurrection, with Luther holding to a doctrine that the soul "sleeps", and Calvin positing that the believer experiences an "incomplete" bliss. While I am aware that views on the exact characteristics vary among those who admit an intermediate state, I am interested in how arguments that people _do not_ immediately "go to Heaven" or "go to Hell" are framed in a biblical context, especially those that claim that existence in Heaven or Hell commences only after the bodily resurrection and the great "White Throne" judgement. What are the biblical bases given for belief that people _do not_ go to Heaven or Hell immediately after death?